🎨 Creative
TTRPG One-Shot Adventure Designer
Design a 3-4 hour tabletop one-shot: hook, map, NPCs, clocks, fights or social set pieces, and a clean ending. System-agnostic unless you specify.
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Prompt
Act as a tabletop GM who writes one-shots that end on time and still feel like a story. Design for 3-4 hours, 3-5 players, one session. Give the GM tools, not a novel. Do not require a published setting book unless Inputs name one. Inputs: - System and level: [System, level or power, or system-agnostic] - Tone: [Horror / heist / mystery / hopeful / weird] - Table: [Player count, experience, lines and veils] - Premise: [What the party is hired or compelled to do] - Setting sketch: [Place, era, special rules] - Must include: [NPC, twist type, set piece] - Must avoid: [Tropes, harm, puzzles that stall] - Time: [Hours at the table] - Output format: [Read-aloud + bullets] Generate: 1. Pitch: 8-10 sentences a GM can read to the table, then a 3-sentence spoiler pitch for the GM only. 2. Setup: starting situation, what happens if the party does nothing (a clock), session goals that are player-facing. 3. Cast: 5-7 NPCs. Want, leverage, tell, what they do if ignored. One is a false lead. Mark them. 4. Map and sites: 4-6 locations. Each: 3 sensory beats, 1 secret, 1 way to leave. A simple topology (who connects to whom). 5. Clocks: 2-3. 4-6 ticks. What advances them. What happens at full. How players can stall them. 6. Set pieces: 3 (one social, one exploration or puzzle that cannot softlock, one action). For each: setup, 2 likely plans, fail-forward, loot or info. 7. Antagonist pressure: how the opposition learns, 3 escalating moves that are not "they attack the tavern again." 8. Endings: 3 (clean win, costly win, walk-away). A last image for each. XP or analog if the system wants it. 9. GM cheat sheet: names, clocks, likely 4-hour timeline, 8 improvised names, 5 random details. Constraints: - No em dashes. No boxed text longer than 90 words. - Do not invent mechanics that contradict the named system. If system-agnostic, use DC/advantage language sparingly and label it as a suggestion. - Puzzles must have at least two solutions and a bypass cost. - Honor lines and veils. If empty, default: no sexual violence, no harm to children, off-screen torture. - Write for a GM who preps 40 minutes, not a weekend.
Instructions
Replace every [bracket] with your details before running. Works on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Examples
Example Input
System and level: system-agnostic, low-power, roughly 3rd-level D&D equivalent Tone: heist with a little weird, not horror Table: 4 players, mixed experience, lines: no harm to kids, no spiders, no romantic pressure at the table Premise: steal a ledger from the Harbor Clerk before dawn; the ledger names who is smuggling grain out of a hungry town Setting sketch: canal town, late autumn, fog, one bridge, a clerk's hall with a night bell Must include: a rival crew that is already inside, a clock for the dawn barge, a talking canal lock-key that wants a song Must avoid: riddle doors, betrayal-by-the-quest-giver as the only twist, spider cellars Time: 3.5 hours Output format: short read-aloud, then bullets
Example Output
1. Pitch (table) The town is hungry and the barges still leave full. You have one night to take the Harbor Clerk's ledger from the hall by the bridge. Dawn's barge will carry the next grain out. The night bell rings if the hall is breached. Fog on the canal. A rival crew may already be moving. GM spoiler: The rival crew is inside, hired by a miller named on the ledger. The talking lock-key opens a silent water door for a song sung in full, not hummed. Dawn barge is the hard clock. The quest-giver is honest. The twist is the miller's name, a person the town likes. 2. Setup 10pm, fogged towpath, hall lights on. If they do nothing, the barge leaves at 6 ticks (~5am). Goals: get the ledger, do not starve the town further, get out before the bell. 3. Cast Clerk Venn: quiet night, bell rope, ink on cuffs. Ignores until tick 3, then patrols. Porter Brin: wants a bribe, side-stair keys, a cough. Stays at the stove if ignored. Rival Kade: wants the miller's page only, dark-lantern crew of 3, wet boots. FALSE LEAD: not the clerk's agent; works for the miller. Miller Osha (off-site): wants her name cut, food credit, grain on her hem. Talking lock-key (iron fish): wants a whole song, silent water door, hums off-key. Barge captain Rel: leaves on time, horn. 4. Map Towpath: cold water, tar, gulls. Secret: skiff with one oar. Leave: bridge or water. Bridge: wet stone, bell rope, foghorn. Secret: rope is greased. Leave: hall or canal. Hall public room: oil lamps, paper dust, a cat. Secret: ledger is in a floor safe, not the desk. Upper office: clock, Venn's coat, a fake last-year ledger. Canal lock: iron, algae, fish-key in a niche. Song must be finished. Cellar: barrels, drip, no spiders. Safe underside. Topology: towpath-bridge-hall-office; lock-cellar-hall. 5. Clocks Dawn barge 6: loud bell, long fights, waiting. Full: grain gone. Stall: bribe Rel, foul a line. Night bell 4: glass, steel, shouting. Full: militia in 2 turns. Stall: Brin's stove, cut greased rope (hurts escape). Rival theft 4: dawdling. Full: Kade has the miller page and the rest is burning. 6. Set pieces Social, Brin: bribe, story, steal keys. Fail-forward: takes coin, still coughs for Venn. Exploration, floor safe: lock-key song to cellar underside; fake ledger wastes time; Kade already cracking it. Bypass: smash (2 bell ticks). No riddle door. Two solutions plus cost. Action, cellar: parley (they want one page), rush, flood from the lock. Fail-forward: ledger wet, names readable, dawn +1. 7. Pressure Kade learns by sound and the cat. Moves: douse lamps; plant the fake ledger; cut the skiff loose. Not "they attack the tavern." 8. Endings Clean: ledger out, barge delayed, miller named in the square. Costly: ledger out, bell full, militia has their faces. Walk-away: Kade's page only; town stays hungry. XP analog: mark if the town eats this week. 9. Cheat sheet Clocks: barge 6, bell 4, rival 4. Timeline: 0:00 towpath, 0:40 Brin, 1:20 hall, 2:10 rival, 2:50 song, 3:20 out. Names: Pell, Yarrow, Cress, Noll, Ivo, Sade, Quin, Mar. Details: wet receipts, half pie, greased rope, a dropped mitten on the bridge (no harm to kids), fog that swallows shouts.